The question is, does being smarter mean an understanding of ourselves and our place in this universe, or being better at doing our daily jobs or improving our abilities with mundane rather meaningless things?

"Smartness" can have different interpretations. I certainly think that we are living wrong these days and a return to the simpler life where "quality of life" exists would certainly be a smarter if less technical and analytical way of being.

Any substance that can liberate humankind and sort the real important stuff from the trivial obsessive crap is certainly worthy in developing human "smartness"...YES!

I don't know about DMT, but I can say that LSD can often induce a nonstop 10 hour analytical/problem-solving type of state for me, where I just sit there trying to think of questions and possible answers and do things of that nature. I'm unable to do LSD often (because of poor connections), but I bet if I did it every week or two I would become measurably smarter, simply because of all the additional practice I would have in thinking in an analytical/problem-solving way. Besides that, I am able to form connections between things much easier when I'm on it than when not. I'm sure some of the new connections formed would transfer to normal sober life, effectively broadening my thinking and therefore making me "smarter".

I guess it's just speculation, but it makes a lot of sense to me.

Edit: There's also the "new insight" thing, but I chose to leave that out because that's already been discussed.

to name two notes (of the ones i actually am functioning enough to write down, which tend to be the less profound ones).

and as for looking at problems (or rather, everything in general) from a different perspective, how can you NOT do that after having a powerful psychedelic experience?
to keep that perspective requires one only to be mindful...

and also it would be fair to attribute all my knowledge of chemistry, philosophy, archeology, and religion (at least indirectly) to psychedelics as well....

mistake objectivity with mutual subjectivity? only if you don't use controls and a validated method.

you can easily fool a group of people into believing they are perceiving something that really isn't there. don't need psychedelics to figure that out, just critical thinking, which hopefully people already have.

what i am trying to say with that, is that the scientific method (or really any method of observation), is something that we mutually, subjectively, repeatedly observe.
there is no way to prove that makes something objective; because there is no way to prove objectivity (at least not objectively ).

if you dissect a dream, does it reveal to you the fact you are in a dream?
if we are all mutually perceiving things incorrectly, and can do so repeatedly and with controls and validated methods, then what?

I hope following this thread will make me smarter

how would you determine it was done incorrectly? incorrect perception is scrutinized al the time.. it's called
peer review.
comparing dreams with a method using validated instruments is comparing apples
to jawharps.

and i'd like to know exactly what about chemistry psychedlics have taught you , while under the influence

but if it is MUTUAL your peers would perceive it exactly the same as you....
which is to say all humans, and to a greater extent all life on planet earth, shares a mutual, subjective perspective, as well as individual and cultural perspectives within that shared (mutual) viewpoint.


hypothetically, if we are in a simulation of sorts (comparable to a dream) then we would not be able to know for sure. this is called an analogy, it is a method of comparison used in critical thinking.
also how do you say a dream is not a valid comparison of the universe?
can you mathematically prove that you are not existing in some sort of dream-space?


while i have not learned chemistry directly from the experience itself, were psychedelics not a part of my life, i would me much, much, much more chemically illiterate than i am right now (hence my saying "indirectly" ).

and also i saw how all molecules fit along a three dimensional flower of life pattern, but i hardly think that means a thing to you.

to be honest i don't think we are going to get anything accomplished with this discussion except de-rail this thread...

This 'reality as a dream' discussion has been around in many threads, gibran2 is always there for it

The point is that science talks about the patterns within that reality or "dream". Sure you can argue that it's all some kind of simulation, but what's the point? It's not like you can actually know anything or do anything about the "outside" (IF its there, which you cant say for sure either). And yet you do always seem to come back to this reality here, so might as well learn the best way we can from it, no? And what better, more reliable way than science?

Regarding DMT making one smarter, I dont think it's that simple, but ayahuasca-taking people did have very good cognitive results vs some control groups (though of course, you can never have a real control of yourself like a clone). But anyways I think considering some potentially positive neurochemical-related aspects of ayahuasca (not sure of DMT by itself), together with the expanded subjective experience which can serve as learning, these substances can indeed in a way 'make one smarter'.

Maybe smarter would have to be defined before, though. Is it related to IQ, to one specific type of mental operation? Can it be for example interpersonal intelligence too? Because a dose of some substances can certainly make one more aware of others, etc. Or musical, or problem solving improvement. Or maybe it can catalyse self-knowledge, a change in negative habbits, etc.

Im not sure if you can actually get some "tangible" knowledge from hyperspace like a specific tangible message (blueprints for building some machine, answer to a mathematical question, whatever), but I dont discard it either. I wouldnt be wary of claims of this, though, before investigating properly.

so, by your rationale, pcp taught me neuropharmacology, quantum mechanics, and nihilism.

Well, here's my two pennies.
Psychedelics definetly aroused my curiosity.
They led me to a path of measuring philosophical ideas to my beliefs.
They changed my view of the world.
They changed my view of self.
Through the feats to procure them, they required learning chemistry skills.
They brought me therapy and the ability to heal my emotional wounds.
They made me face the real me. Beyond the lies I've built and rationalized from emotion.

There are many ways to measure intelligence.
I know people with degrees and fancy plaques. They are not what I see as smart.
They are dogmatic, selfish, ignorant and have no common sense.
Their God is the only true God.
They take prescriptions and see therapists.
They think all drugs are bad unless a doctor says different.

But I'm just a high school drop-out who drinks, smokes, takes drugs. Who am I to know better?

I just like this post.
Indeed, what our society calls achievments, I call it fucking obession. Material obsession. You dont go to school to be smart, you go to school to have grades.
You just have to do some fake ass research, which is always basically reformulate ideas that are already existing, and then you have good grades. Dont you ever try to analyse anything in college that comes from you, just reformulate already written ideas, and youll pass!
School is a system, a system for the system. This and studying real hard for two weeks beefore the exam, remember everything for the two weeks, then forget it all because most of the stuff that you have to remember, you wont 2 month after your final exam. how pathetic. I did a whole cirtificate and I can assure you that I dont remember much. And the means to evaluate and the exam or reasearch dont mean shit. I remeber what I read in my books, ect, not how perfectly presented my ideas were on the final exam.
Psychadelic makes me A LOT smarter then other people. But I dont like the term 'smart'.
Everybody is smart. Everyone can understand the basic rules that one individual have to follow in order to be happy, you dont dont have to be smart, but it seems that it is.
Ego driven society we live in. individualistic. not the people, but the system. Even smart people are acting fucking crazy and dumb: loveless, egoistic, dishonest, not loyable.
A smart person for me is not what societey calls smart.
A smart person is someone who have learned to love, accept, understand, caring to everything in their life. A person smart is someone who accept himself and others, love one another, give to one another, share, think, but must important is someone who at least learn to love, and not jusge anyone.

Smart is just again a name for the system.

Someone smart is someone who is alive, act the way he is. Someone honest. Psychadelic forced me to be honest with myself, accept myself, face my fears. It is the ultimate medicine. It is the proof of beauty, of the magic of life. It can help us as a society. If taken with assistance, meaning that if at school, we would learn what psychadelic shows us; empathy, love, unity, respect, ect. we could build a society who is morally and psychologically strong (because everyone would have to face themselves and there fears).

Without even any drugs, just with meditation, exercise of concentration, psychology time, group time, cummunity sort of school environments, where everyone would help each other.
We could have music class, studying jazz music. and movies class, along phylosophy, ect.

Yes I belive that if everyone person on the planet would be learn at school some of the 'proof' of the mystery and powerful magic of existence, I believe that mostly everyone would understand the power of love, of self development, of spirituality, of communication. communication is important. ah anyways, You all get my point
cheers
and sorry for my english, im french

Why do you imply that any validated method is objective?
What do you mean by objective method?

Do you think that a dream is unreal? Try not to dream!

Why do any conclusion can only comes from the physical world?
Try to do any psychadelic and avoid all that its not measurable.
The unseen, the mind, the dream cant be calculated, yet it exist. We do live in a material body, yet I live unmaterial experiences.

What is your definition of what is real? What is measurable?

What is real is real, but our experience is divided in two categories: body and mind.
When you dream, your body do not react in the situation, yet your mind is active.
Who is alive when you sleep, your body? yes, your brain. Your brain is alive. the same brain that also analyse the measurable world when its awake. Your brain is active, just like when you are in reality. Just the fact that when we take a drug, we change the way our brain fonction, proves that we are still experiencing something that our brain sense. Its all a distortion of the reality, but its still always reality isnt it?
Objective method seems to me that it works for everyone with the same brain fonctions.
I understand that the measurable reality argument can always win because you can only proove what I can grab in my hand. and touch and feel. Still, I believe that measure reality isnt quite useful for mens in term of understanding what we perceive. What we perceive is only because we are all humans that have the same brain. Reality is how our species can see it, nothing less but nothing more. We can not believe anything we measure to be any helpful in any way to understand the nature and the purpose of life and its fondation. We can only and always will be, speculating.

But limiting our understanding of the reality based on only what science can measure is useless. That Im sure of. Science can help, but since science cant even measure what I dream, its enough for me to know that science is of no help when I try to see my reality after 30 mg of dmt. Science is no use when I dream. I dream, and theres nothing I can do about that. My dreams exist, or at least, the state of dreaming exist. I can measure it in my brain with scan and all, but scanning my brain when I sleep doesnt tell you anything about the content of my dream, and that is major. Theres the experience, and the measurements, and measurements never works.

Just be interested in audiophiles. You can take a hi-fi system with perfect measurements, yet sounds like bad.

http://www.diyaudio.com/...ity-vs-measurements.html

You can never base your eality on measurements alone, and if you do, well you miss half of it, at least.

O


On that note, I must chime in and say even quantum science shows nothing is real.

nothing but probabilities.

do i think dreams are real? i think they're imagined.
let me ask you, murphythecat... do you place a lot of importance on dreams?
i don't. REM sleep is necessary for maintaining health, dreams are a side-effect.

dreams aren't something i derive any useful knowledge from while i'm awake, but i do apply controls
and the scientific method everyday, for quality control and diagnostic medicine. that's about as objective as it gets

Smart has its own definition. You can't just say to you a word means something completely different. The word smart was not derived due to "the system" needing to corral people into groups to distinguish their attributes.



Let's not get into semantics, as it seems this forum falls into this void often. Rather, this post is about whether or not you think psychadelics make you more intelligent or not. IME it has led to my expansion of knowledge. It has helped increase my understanding of things and expanded on my life in so many ways I cannot list them all here. I know more and DO more because of psychadelics.

They have not IMO, increase the speed at which I process information, my aptitude, or cognitive abilities. If it has I have not notices yet.

(edit) further, they have not increased my iPhone typing abilities either. lol

fair enough, as long as you don't dogmatically believe that you can objectively know anything.
but in a place were one can only have knowledge the subjective, is the man hunting for objective knowledge the wise man?

anyways this thread has been de-railed by earelephants and semantic interpretations of "intelligence" enough as it is, so i think it is fair to put an end to this discussion.

i don't know how many times i have to say this... i'm a scientist. "dogma" and "belief" isn't in our vocabulary, neither is "proven".
you don't really prove anything, you only show evidence. terms like "reality" and "intelligence" are a whole other endless debate.

hi
let me turn the question around!

when you dream, do you place a lot of importance to awake life?

Do you really go around measuring things in your dream. When we ream, we dream, and its aas real as your mind thinks it really experience something.



Do you really care about measuring the tangibility of the dream? no! because you can'T and you know that. But even if I cant measure my dream, I dream, and that dream state is all I have when I sleep. It's my life 8 hours a day, anbd I sure care about it when I dream. Sure I dont care when im awake, but I dont care either when I'm awake to measure reality, I expereicne it, that all I know!


But I get your point and understand and agree with your scientific approach. I have read you quite a bit on this forum and I really like your posts, but you never adventure yourself in the metaphysical subject!

if you dont mind the question, I'm curious to know what is your opinion towards what is real and what is not real?

Is everything that you can measure is real, and what you cant measure, like a dream or a psychadelic state, isnt real?

What is the mind to you. When you dream, what is the thing that dreams? do you call this the mind?

how much of reality do you think we can sense with our brain and our senses? What's out there to you?

being that i spend most of my day awake, and not in dreamland, of course i'll put more importance on the former.
i don't care as much about dreams as when i was younger, and i differentiate between the plausible and illusory.
it's no longer particularly interesting to me to ponder the "what ifs", i've already done that. to me dreams are primarily indexed memories, same neurochemicals are involved with dreaming and memory.